1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to information processing software applications, and more particularly to a system and method of generating and displaying dynamic index views of information stored in a document.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computers are increasingly being used to store and manipulate very large and diverse masses of information. As the power, speed, and storage capacity of computer hardware increase, the amount of information that is available to users continues to grow, requiring more and more effort to organize and manage. In addition, the proliferation of high-speed local-area- and wide-area-networks has increased the amount of information flow among computer users. Consequently, the task of providing effective and efficient access to a particular desired piece of data becomes more difficult.
Much of the information that is becoming available on computer systems is unstructured and therefore difficult to organize, process, and retrieve. Unstructured information can be defined to include electronic mail messages, application files and documents, user generated free-form text, streams of information packets in news feeds, and the like. In particular, electronic mail systems have grown more sophisticated, giving rise to more complex and diverse messages that can include file attachments, charts, graphs, voice annotations, and other forms of multi-media information. Modern operating systems such as NeXTSTEP allow even richer data environments, allowing applications to communicate with one another, resulting in even more instances of unstructured and highly varied pieces of information.
Application programs that allow users to organize information are known. Outline processors permit users to organize textual data in a hierarchical outline format, hide or show information to various levels as needed, easily reorganize pieces of information by clicking and dragging with an input device such as a mouse, and create various types of graphical displays based on the contents of outlines. Contact managers and to-do managers provide tools for organizing and keeping track of business contacts and tasks to be performed. These and other commercially-available software products help users apply a structure or organizational template to essentially unstructured information, thus facilitating later access and retrieval as needed. However, in all of these applications, users must expend some effort when entering information, thinking about the structure being applied and how the information fits into that structure. This effort may not be insubstantial, as users are forced to consider possible retrieval strategies and modes whenever they enter new data.
What is needed, then, is a technique that allows information entry with very little user effort, yet provides flexible and powerful retrieval tools that apply structure as needed, automatically, and in a useful manner.